New Suit

I saw New Suit at a student screening. The movie is a slick, fast moving satire on the film industry's the holy grail: a hot script.

This is a little movie that packs a lot into what I was told a One Million Dollar budget. The lead character, a hapless D-boy, JORDAN BRIDGES (development assistant/staff reader) stuck in a thankless job is charming and likeable from the get go. In fact, he may make a lot of the aspiring D-Boys nervous, since he has the routine down pat. The humor in the story has as tongue in cheek quality to it, and is a refreshing change from all the indie films that are trying way too hard to be "cool." Heather Donahue shows her comedy chops and is a majo, especially since her other big role was the from Blair Witch.

I may be the only one who sees this flick as a homage to CANDIDE in many ways. But, what the hell, I had a good time. The D.P, rocks, especially since he clearly had to make every shot count working on such a tight time frame and budget.

I came to a screening of NEW SUIT with a friend, and I was just blown away. I knew nothing at all about it beforehand, and afterwards I was just happy. It's kind of a feel-good satire. It's kind of like "The Player" and "Swimming With Sharks" but with more jokes, and snappier dialogue than "Swimming With Sharks" and no dead bodies. It's more fun and not as dark as those movies. I recommend seeing this one strongly. You won't regret it. The story itself sounds deceptively simple. Guy comes to Hollywood. He wants to be a writer and he ends up with a lame job as an assistant. He's really not happy. He plays a trick on his friends and tells them that there's a new script they have to read called "The New Suit" by a guy called Jackson Strawberry. The joke is that there is no script and no author. Very quickly, those friends tell their friends, and it runs out of control very quickly.

Soon everybody's talking about "The New Suit" and this mystery writer. It gets to a point where people are trying to buy this fake script. I won't spoil the ending, but it's really unexpected.

I said that it's deceptively simple, because there's a lot going on here. First of all the movie is fast. It moves very quickly. The dialogue and characters are sharp, and nasty and absolutely dead-on hilarious. the movie never stoops to cater to the lowest common denominator. you've got to pay attention because things start to happen so quickly and the movie doesn't explain everything. You've got to figure it out. New Suit has a great look. I saw it projected in a wide-screen format and it was really rich. I recognized some of the actors (Dan Hedaye), but all of them were fantastic - across the board. The two leads (Marisa Coughlan and Jordan Bridges) were very charismatic. They were familiar to me but this movie really shows their capabilities. There's also Paul MCrane from ER. And you'll be surprised by his performance. And Heather Donahue from The Blair Witch Project has a supporting role, and she proves herself here. Dan Hedaye is raw and sleazy and scary here - an excellent performance as good as anything I've seen him do. But really, the acting is solid here. The music was very cool. Editing is quick. Its well-directed, but I did get dizzy at one point (you'll see what I mean). But mostly you're just going to laugh. Some of the jokes are set up way in advance and I had to laugh out loud, and I never do that. The dialogue was just sharp and youve met all of these characters before. I did get a little confused at one point and I will say that the movie starts out like a typical Hollywood story, and you feel like you've seen this before, and then it kicks in and surprises you. Overall you leave the theater feeling good. It's a fully-realized satire and I strongly recommend it. If you like your comedy with a brain, you'll like it a lot.

Watching HBO on a Tuesday afternoon is rarely a very rewarding activity. Wanna be films pour for more than eighty minutes on screen, making me wonder whether sleep doesn't truly have an intellectual purpose. However, from time to time, like once or twice every six months, it just so happens that there's film on, Tuesday in the afternoon, which has a title that appeals in even the faintest regard. Now, that's a day to keep in mind. When there's even a concept behind the thing, a tiny eye-hole vision, then you might just have yourself a funky time on your head.

"New Suit" is by far not an impressive film, but, given the circumstances above mentioned, it gathers some attention for itself, considering the allegorical context: Hollywood living in it's flawless suit of "despickability". Maybe there's not much to laugh at during the movie, but it's a pleasant feeling to sense someone small and innocent portraying Hollywood's fakeness and forgetting that everyone is a "victim" in the system. Of course, it doesn't go too deep and about half of the movie feels just like a dumped story of its kind, but being candid is that which makes it worth its while.

The actors are so well picked - total anonymity dispersed among some familiar faces - that they conjure this fantasy like atmosphere, cleverly backed up by some very lively, nearly surreal colors, obviously denoting that it doesn't take itself too serious. I have to appreciate "New Suit" for being smart, even though it remains somewhat hollow at times.

New Suit, which opens tomorrow, I had the chance to see on the Fox lot last year. Having been around and developing several screenplays, I can honestly say that this film looks to have been written by someone who has gone through some of the exact same things.

While certainly some of the comedy falls short, because comedies aren't easy to do, Jordan Bridges plays a pretty good "new guy" just starting out in the biz who has high hopes, yet are dashed by how he sees that films are really picked.

Most ' angry film students' who lived in fantasy land, like I once did, won't really appreciate the humor because they are dealing mostly with the microcosm of film school where they can do what they like (like the previos reviewer). That said, I do think that much of the films humor may be lost on a non-industry crowd, so I don't know where this film's future lies. Needless to say, I enjoyed it. (The side characters of the junior executives is dead on.)

Certainly photographed and cut like any other comedy released by a major studio, New Suit may not leave a big mark on anyone, but it's worth a look.

pJ

What a refreshing, well-written movie is the comedy New Suit. Talented fresh faces backed by solid veterans comprise a very able cast. The clever shooting was done in digital 24P a la George Lucas with fine results -- The framing, colors and scenes are quite lovely. This magnificent send-up of Hollywood is a delight to behold... Quite amazing considering its modest $1 million budget. New Suit is an excellent comedy and a fantastic tonic for the mediocre drivel that the big studios distribute. This movie is obviously the work of a great team -- it's a winner.